When Boyle is listing negative aspects of British culture, he mentions “hating people from a broadly similar town 30 miles away”, this is a social commentary about the divide between British towns, that the British population often enforce on themselves. This divide is greatly due to harmless banter such as rooting for their regional team in the Premier League and mocking accents. However, the intertown taunting can sometimes come from a much darker place such as comparing crime rates and wealth statistics.

“Freedom of speech, for anyone who isn’t joking.” this is a reference to Britain’s dodgy take on freedom of speech. A British resident still today can be potentially arrested for jokes that could be considered a “hate crime”, breaching the “Communications Act 2003”.

The Human Rights Act of 1998 states: “everyone has the right to freedom of expression”, however, it also states “this freedom may be subject to formalities, conditions, restrictions or penalties as are prescribed by law and are necessary in a democratic society”.

Count dankula is a perfect example of this

These two laws seem quite contradictory in nature. Who is to decide if the joke should qualify as a “hate crime”? Context is essential to decide if a piece of media is racist babblings or a piece of satire.

Bad ideas are most effectively defeated by good ideas – backed up by ethics, reason – rather than by bans and censorship.”

With all this grey area, this set of laws have to be applied on a case to case basis